Ethics, we all know, is that portion of Philosophy whose study enables good people to turn into evil little shits working an evil more comprehensive than their pointy little heads have capacity to envisage. Gandhian Economics, being Ethical in motivation, has long been used as the equivalent of a rape whistle when talking about Development. However, in so far as it is effective against actual rapists- like Bill and Melinda Gates- it is by reason of the enormous amounts of vomit, urine and faeces that are simultaneously emitted making noisome the vicinity of all orifices in danger of imminent violation.
The question may thus be posed- is Gandhian economics a rape whistle or is it actually strategic incontinence? All Indian Discourse, as Ranajit Guha has pointed out, is merely the meretricious Methodenstreit that must arise in this connection.
Saturday, 16 April 2011
Sunday, 10 April 2011
Sheldon Pollock' s 'othering' and 'brothering'- outs him as crypto-Hindutva
Prof Pollock writes ' the ‘Ramáyana’ is a tale of “othering,” the enemy is non-human, even demonic, and the war takes place in an unfamiliar, faraway world; the ‘Mahabhárata’ is a tale of “brothering,” the enemy are kinsmen—indeed, as the protagonists say, almost their own selves—and the war takes place at home.'
Are the Ramayana and MhB really related in the way Prof. Pollock suggests? Both stories feature exemplary bands of brothers. There is no fraternal conflict. Karna merely has to reveal his true birth for the great blood-letting of Kurukshetra never to occur. However, Destiny has willed otherwise. Humans are merely the instruments of the Divine Plan. Lots of demons (Pollock's 'othering') get slain in both Epics because that's what heroes do. Indeed, Ghatotkacha, though part of the Pandava family, has to die because he is a 'Rakshasa' whom Krishna has marked down for death.
By contrast, in the Ramayana, a Rakshasa, the younger brother of the villain, becomes a sort of junior brother of Lord Rama and receives the throne of Lanka as a gift.
In both Epics, brothers are shown as tenderly affectionate as well as utterly loyal to each other. Pollock's distinction is meaningless. Yet he makes it anyway. Why? Perhaps because, though he says he won't, he still interprets the Ramayana in a racialist way. The Rakshasas are actually Dravidians or Mundas or some such subaltern race. So, it's like how the Ramayana views the non-Aryans as demons and like totally inhuman y'know? And that's bad, okay?
No, not okay. It isn't true. Rama is not a King. He's an 'un-King'. He's a forest dweller. He gets on fine with forest tribes, the vanar monkey-people, animals, birds and so on. How can the Ramayana be 'the privileged, if not the sole, South Asian narrative of hieratic politics?' Three Kingdoms are dealt with- one human, here the younger Brother yields to the elder while all show exemplary filial piety- the second, Vanar (monkey-people) where there is a conflict between brothers (not 'others, Prof. Pollock, brothers) but moral culpability is reduced by lack of pre-meditation and the Epimethean and impulsive nature of the species, and finally the Lankan Rakshasas where conflict between brothers can rise to the level of Ethics and Public Policy.
Is absolute filial piety, such as that of the Ayodhyan Court, really politics? That too 'hieratic' Politics? I don't see how. Not enough happens at Ayodhya; there isn't enough of the sort of stuff politics feeds on viz. dealing with famines and rebellions and wars and so on. Compare Lord Ram with King David. 'Hieratic politics' is meaningful with reference to the latter- what on earth has it to do with Ram's Ayodhya?
Okay, there is some politics and intrigue amongst the Vannars and in Lanka- but monkeys and ogres aren't protagonists of 'priviliged narratives of hieratic politics- at least not in South Asia, which Prof. Pollock has actually visited.
In defence of his thesis that the Ramayana is about 'othering' Pollock says something incredibly foolish viz. that Ravana's moral alterity arises from his 'reckless polygyny'. Is this guy meshugganah? Can he not know that Ram's father, King Dasharatha, was also polygamous? The second reason Pollock advances for Ravana's 'othering' is that he was a tyrant. But Lanka was a peaceful and prosperous country. Ravana was a King, a strong one- somewhat better than Emperor Ashoka.in that he did not order the massacre of Shramans while fattening Brahmins. Why is Pollock making this ridiculous assertion? It's because his thesis is false and he himself knows it, but the real thesis he wants to present is not politically correct so he'll undermine its opposite by appearing to support it.
The Rakshasas are shape-shifters who like eating human flesh. They are slain in both the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. But some Rakshasas are good and some are bad. The Ramayana does not end with a 'final solution' to the Rakshasa problem. The throne passes from one Rakshasa- whose death was fated at the hands of Vishnu's avatar- to his brother. Pollock quotes Merutunga's Prabandhachintamani (1304) where the Solanki King Jayasimha Siddharaja (1094-1143) puts a scare into the Mleccha (barbarian) ambassadors by making it appear that King Vibhishna, Ravana's brother enthroned by Rama, had recognised that the current incarnation of his Saviour was the Solanki King and that he was ready to come to his aid with his Rakshasa hosts should the need arise. Clearly, the Ramayana- or the notion of the King as the incarnation of Lord Rama- were not associated with demonizing anybody, let alone the Rakshasas. On the contrary, since Vibhishana is a Ram-bhakt (devotee of Ram) his help is to be sought precisely because he belongs to the same race as his brother. What Pollock does not say- but becomes apparent from his own post-Babri essay- is that the Islamic invaders behaved like demons towards the Hindus and that, for the first time, an entirely new aspect of Lord Ram was revealed- viz. his status during the Lankan war as an un-King, the opposite of a King, one maddened by grief who yet remains steadfast in taking the battle to the enemy and routing him upon his home-ground. In other words, the un-King as the locus of resistance to an irresistible and Satanic Imperial power, turns Lord Ram's compassionate and tender nature into a model of an engaged caritas which aims at the overthrow of a hateful and inhuman Imperium, that too by means of a popular 'subaltern' uprising. Pollock quotes a letter from Shivaji labelling Aurangazeb as a 'div' (devil) and appealing for help against him. Muslim sources- the Pashto poet Kushal Khan Khattak for example- indicate that Aurangazeb's transgressions were of sufficiently grave a character to justify the description.
In this context, the destruction of the Babri Masjid- not by an order of the State, nor by the disciplined action of uniformed members of a para-military organization, but by a vast multitude of ordinary people with Political leaders merely looking on, so to speak, acquires a semiotic significance which Pollock's writings otherwise signally fails to make. But, was this his perhaps unconscious intention?
As with Witzel's, Pollock's Indology quickly unravels to reveal a sort of ultra- Purva Mimamsa type of Brahminism which every Brahmin lineage I've ever heard about has explicitly repudiated and whose brief historicity was an aberration, a cancerous hyper-trophy, rather than, soteriologically speaking, an organic development.
Pollock really ought to know better and does know better but why should that stop him? Philology no longer means close reading it means uttering modish sound-bites, and constantly showing one's credentials as an anti-Fascist- precisely because this is both the origin and occulted trajectory of one's praxis- though only variants of Fascism demand this of scholarship.
Pollock's cryto-Hindutva is compounded by misogyny. He writes- ‘Shakúntala’ is a ‘Mahabhárata’ play, and ‘Rama’s Last Act’ seems designed as a ‘Ramáyana’ counterpart to, and competitor of, Kalidasa’s masterpiece. Like the two epics the two plays share a deep resemblance. In their core they are stories about love, rejection, recovery, and ultimately—because this is the very reason behind the rejection— political power and its perpetuation. The star-crossed love of Dushyánta and Shakúntala is mirrored in that of Rama and Sita. The women, both of whom are pregnant, are repudiated because of doubts about their fidelity and (implicitly) the paternity of the progeny they are carrying. This is followed by a soul-searing acknowledgement of guilt on the part of the husband, reunion with his wife, recognition of the legitimacy of the offspring with the aid of quasi-divine agents (Marícha in ‘Shakúntala,’ the magical anthropomorphic weapons in ‘Rama’s Last Act’), and reconciliation of husband and wife. Both works hereby aim to emend and aesthetically enhance their epic models.'
It seems Pollock simply won't accept that women have equal agency and in the case of Sita, equal divinity, with respect to the men they have espoused. Read the Cliff Notes, Prof! In Kalidasa's play, some Rishi or the other curses Shakuntala that her husband will forget her. Sita always resides within the heart of Ram. She can't be parted by him. Birha is a Maya. Thus in neither case is there a 'repudiation' of a pregnant woman by reason of 'doubts about their fidelity and (implicitly) the paternity of the progeny they are carrying'.
Customary morality, Hebrew or Hindu, states that if your wife runs off or is abducted or whatever then curse her for a slut and take a new wife. Don't go to war over it. Women aren't worth it.
As regards polygny- it is a duty of the King. By taking a new wife a war or rebellion might be averted. An uxorious King is a threat to the commonweal.
Prof. Pollock's view only makes sense if the heroes of the Itihasasas were in reality not ideal human beings but greedy, suspicious, despots with little capacity to love. For this view to make sense, all the characters Pollock mentions must have been extremely important historical figures for whom mercenary court poets manufactured the exculpatory propaganda which has come down to us as epics.
This is silly. Perhaps, Prof. Pollock thinks Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a thinly disguised exercise in exculpation for Hilary Clinton or that Harry Potter stands for the boy Cameron triumphing over the evil wizard Tony Blair.
This is a link to a video of Prof. Pollock bewailing the decline of philology's status in the Academy . But what is the point of his philology if he makes such recklessly false statements about books he has himself translated? The real problem,as his own work illustrates, is not with philology as such but with hermeneutics. The latter cashes out either as
1) Triumphalist Historicism or Strategic Essentialism of a chip-on-the-shoulder type wholly unconcerned with what books actually say.
2) Heideggerian mystagogy- thought at its most thoughtless- that seizes upon Technics as its own foundational problematic so as to render its practitioners not 'problem-driven' (Pollock knows such disciplines grow and burgeon in an alethic and utilitarian manner free of faux navel-gazing and foolish stabs at gesture politics) but wholly absorbed in their own foundational problematic as an impossible discourse.
This brings me to the question, what is hermeneutics for? Books are meant to be loved and teased and mocked and quarreled with- that's philology. They aren't meant to be worshiped or taken as having any sort of authority or insight. Books are shite in the same way we are shite. Get shit-faced with a book. Don't fucking take no shit from it.
Okay, if you're making a living being a Rabbi or a Priest or whatever- sure, what you're doing is hermeneutics- but you're doing it the same way you do your Tax Return- viz. by working backwards from what you can afford to pay.
The other thing about philology is that it began to die when it entered the Academy- like Jazz when it decided it was too good for the dance hall.
Pollock bewails the demise of philology in India. But, that's good news. Why? Because he's talking about the fucking Universities. Does he not know the type of criminal that infests Indian Arts Depts? He goes boo hoo, the Bikaner Royal Family won't let me photograph their manuscripts. He doesn't say that if they let him do it- and, sure, he's a good guy and would actually do what he promised and not like wipe his arse on even a single leaf of Indic incunabula or use it to roll a joint- they'd then have to let in every fucking Gangster of a Professor who will simply steal everything in sight and rape the light fittings. After all, for the last thirty years, academic orthodoxy in India is that Brahmins are the source of all evil. Since some Brahmins were literate, all Indic texts are inherently evil. In any case, all that shit is probably pornographic so this is something both Saffron and Red can agree upon.
Hermeneutics is 'othering'. Philology could be 'brothering' but isn't coz Hermeneutics made it its bitch. . Neither have any relevance to Itihasa. That's stuff to do with loving not books but babies- a burgeoning popular vatsalya not Pollock's all-blighting vedanta.
P.S. funniest line ever- 'The Ramanand Sagar T.V series is the latest (Valmiki's being the first) attempt to establish a HEGEMONIC VERSION of the Ramayana.' Yup, you heard me right- that's Ramanand Sagar we're talking about. What was Pollock smoking? I want some.
The problem with Pollock is that he goes on repeating drivel from failed hermeneutic programs- utterly forgetting to seek for answers to the open problems he himself cites. If Philology is in trouble it's because of Pollock and his ilk. Problem driven readers, if enabled to access relevant texts and research for free- not Professors acting as shills for a corrupt, credentialist, pay-wall protected, Academic publishing racket- can revitalize Philology. Not Governments, not the always risible demand for more disciplinarity discourse, not the Academy- a nightclub where all the lap-dancers have retrained as bouncers- not fucking illiterate bloggers like me, not... hang on a sec. ...I didn't mean that...I know what I said but I expected you to kinda shake your head and say 'no, no dear fellow- not illiterate surely'... No, I'm not getting riled up.... I'm perfectly calm....well, up your hole with a ten foot pole! ... really? That's the best you can come up with? Up my hole with an eleven foot pole? Is that supposed to be witty? Look, just fucking grow up okay? I will write to your headmaster and tell him about those naked pics of your Mom you sent me.... okay, okay, so it was your Gran... listen, you little shit, you're pimping your own fucking Gran okay? That doesn't give you the moral high ground here... Well, yeah, sure I'd still like to meet her... Okay then. That's your Hindi assignment I've emailed you, so just give me her phone number and we're all square... Sheila Dixit is your Nanee? That was her in those photos?... Fuck yeah! I'm a Congress supporter- well I am now!...I'm not sure about the strap-on thing but, it's true, I do look a lot like Ram Vilas Paswan...Cool. Look forward to it... yeah, you too. Go have fun with your gulli danda. I certainly plan to with mine! Many thanks for the new pics.
Are the Ramayana and MhB really related in the way Prof. Pollock suggests? Both stories feature exemplary bands of brothers. There is no fraternal conflict. Karna merely has to reveal his true birth for the great blood-letting of Kurukshetra never to occur. However, Destiny has willed otherwise. Humans are merely the instruments of the Divine Plan. Lots of demons (Pollock's 'othering') get slain in both Epics because that's what heroes do. Indeed, Ghatotkacha, though part of the Pandava family, has to die because he is a 'Rakshasa' whom Krishna has marked down for death.
By contrast, in the Ramayana, a Rakshasa, the younger brother of the villain, becomes a sort of junior brother of Lord Rama and receives the throne of Lanka as a gift.
In both Epics, brothers are shown as tenderly affectionate as well as utterly loyal to each other. Pollock's distinction is meaningless. Yet he makes it anyway. Why? Perhaps because, though he says he won't, he still interprets the Ramayana in a racialist way. The Rakshasas are actually Dravidians or Mundas or some such subaltern race. So, it's like how the Ramayana views the non-Aryans as demons and like totally inhuman y'know? And that's bad, okay?
No, not okay. It isn't true. Rama is not a King. He's an 'un-King'. He's a forest dweller. He gets on fine with forest tribes, the vanar monkey-people, animals, birds and so on. How can the Ramayana be 'the privileged, if not the sole, South Asian narrative of hieratic politics?' Three Kingdoms are dealt with- one human, here the younger Brother yields to the elder while all show exemplary filial piety- the second, Vanar (monkey-people) where there is a conflict between brothers (not 'others, Prof. Pollock, brothers) but moral culpability is reduced by lack of pre-meditation and the Epimethean and impulsive nature of the species, and finally the Lankan Rakshasas where conflict between brothers can rise to the level of Ethics and Public Policy.
Is absolute filial piety, such as that of the Ayodhyan Court, really politics? That too 'hieratic' Politics? I don't see how. Not enough happens at Ayodhya; there isn't enough of the sort of stuff politics feeds on viz. dealing with famines and rebellions and wars and so on. Compare Lord Ram with King David. 'Hieratic politics' is meaningful with reference to the latter- what on earth has it to do with Ram's Ayodhya?
Okay, there is some politics and intrigue amongst the Vannars and in Lanka- but monkeys and ogres aren't protagonists of 'priviliged narratives of hieratic politics- at least not in South Asia, which Prof. Pollock has actually visited.
In defence of his thesis that the Ramayana is about 'othering' Pollock says something incredibly foolish viz. that Ravana's moral alterity arises from his 'reckless polygyny'. Is this guy meshugganah? Can he not know that Ram's father, King Dasharatha, was also polygamous? The second reason Pollock advances for Ravana's 'othering' is that he was a tyrant. But Lanka was a peaceful and prosperous country. Ravana was a King, a strong one- somewhat better than Emperor Ashoka.in that he did not order the massacre of Shramans while fattening Brahmins. Why is Pollock making this ridiculous assertion? It's because his thesis is false and he himself knows it, but the real thesis he wants to present is not politically correct so he'll undermine its opposite by appearing to support it.
The Rakshasas are shape-shifters who like eating human flesh. They are slain in both the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. But some Rakshasas are good and some are bad. The Ramayana does not end with a 'final solution' to the Rakshasa problem. The throne passes from one Rakshasa- whose death was fated at the hands of Vishnu's avatar- to his brother. Pollock quotes Merutunga's Prabandhachintamani (1304) where the Solanki King Jayasimha Siddharaja (1094-1143) puts a scare into the Mleccha (barbarian) ambassadors by making it appear that King Vibhishna, Ravana's brother enthroned by Rama, had recognised that the current incarnation of his Saviour was the Solanki King and that he was ready to come to his aid with his Rakshasa hosts should the need arise. Clearly, the Ramayana- or the notion of the King as the incarnation of Lord Rama- were not associated with demonizing anybody, let alone the Rakshasas. On the contrary, since Vibhishana is a Ram-bhakt (devotee of Ram) his help is to be sought precisely because he belongs to the same race as his brother. What Pollock does not say- but becomes apparent from his own post-Babri essay- is that the Islamic invaders behaved like demons towards the Hindus and that, for the first time, an entirely new aspect of Lord Ram was revealed- viz. his status during the Lankan war as an un-King, the opposite of a King, one maddened by grief who yet remains steadfast in taking the battle to the enemy and routing him upon his home-ground. In other words, the un-King as the locus of resistance to an irresistible and Satanic Imperial power, turns Lord Ram's compassionate and tender nature into a model of an engaged caritas which aims at the overthrow of a hateful and inhuman Imperium, that too by means of a popular 'subaltern' uprising. Pollock quotes a letter from Shivaji labelling Aurangazeb as a 'div' (devil) and appealing for help against him. Muslim sources- the Pashto poet Kushal Khan Khattak for example- indicate that Aurangazeb's transgressions were of sufficiently grave a character to justify the description.
In this context, the destruction of the Babri Masjid- not by an order of the State, nor by the disciplined action of uniformed members of a para-military organization, but by a vast multitude of ordinary people with Political leaders merely looking on, so to speak, acquires a semiotic significance which Pollock's writings otherwise signally fails to make. But, was this his perhaps unconscious intention?
As with Witzel's, Pollock's Indology quickly unravels to reveal a sort of ultra- Purva Mimamsa type of Brahminism which every Brahmin lineage I've ever heard about has explicitly repudiated and whose brief historicity was an aberration, a cancerous hyper-trophy, rather than, soteriologically speaking, an organic development.
Pollock really ought to know better and does know better but why should that stop him? Philology no longer means close reading it means uttering modish sound-bites, and constantly showing one's credentials as an anti-Fascist- precisely because this is both the origin and occulted trajectory of one's praxis- though only variants of Fascism demand this of scholarship.
Pollock's cryto-Hindutva is compounded by misogyny. He writes- ‘Shakúntala’ is a ‘Mahabhárata’ play, and ‘Rama’s Last Act’ seems designed as a ‘Ramáyana’ counterpart to, and competitor of, Kalidasa’s masterpiece. Like the two epics the two plays share a deep resemblance. In their core they are stories about love, rejection, recovery, and ultimately—because this is the very reason behind the rejection— political power and its perpetuation. The star-crossed love of Dushyánta and Shakúntala is mirrored in that of Rama and Sita. The women, both of whom are pregnant, are repudiated because of doubts about their fidelity and (implicitly) the paternity of the progeny they are carrying. This is followed by a soul-searing acknowledgement of guilt on the part of the husband, reunion with his wife, recognition of the legitimacy of the offspring with the aid of quasi-divine agents (Marícha in ‘Shakúntala,’ the magical anthropomorphic weapons in ‘Rama’s Last Act’), and reconciliation of husband and wife. Both works hereby aim to emend and aesthetically enhance their epic models.'
It seems Pollock simply won't accept that women have equal agency and in the case of Sita, equal divinity, with respect to the men they have espoused. Read the Cliff Notes, Prof! In Kalidasa's play, some Rishi or the other curses Shakuntala that her husband will forget her. Sita always resides within the heart of Ram. She can't be parted by him. Birha is a Maya. Thus in neither case is there a 'repudiation' of a pregnant woman by reason of 'doubts about their fidelity and (implicitly) the paternity of the progeny they are carrying'.
Customary morality, Hebrew or Hindu, states that if your wife runs off or is abducted or whatever then curse her for a slut and take a new wife. Don't go to war over it. Women aren't worth it.
As regards polygny- it is a duty of the King. By taking a new wife a war or rebellion might be averted. An uxorious King is a threat to the commonweal.
Prof. Pollock's view only makes sense if the heroes of the Itihasasas were in reality not ideal human beings but greedy, suspicious, despots with little capacity to love. For this view to make sense, all the characters Pollock mentions must have been extremely important historical figures for whom mercenary court poets manufactured the exculpatory propaganda which has come down to us as epics.
This is silly. Perhaps, Prof. Pollock thinks Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a thinly disguised exercise in exculpation for Hilary Clinton or that Harry Potter stands for the boy Cameron triumphing over the evil wizard Tony Blair.
This is a link to a video of Prof. Pollock bewailing the decline of philology's status in the Academy . But what is the point of his philology if he makes such recklessly false statements about books he has himself translated? The real problem,as his own work illustrates, is not with philology as such but with hermeneutics. The latter cashes out either as
1) Triumphalist Historicism or Strategic Essentialism of a chip-on-the-shoulder type wholly unconcerned with what books actually say.
2) Heideggerian mystagogy- thought at its most thoughtless- that seizes upon Technics as its own foundational problematic so as to render its practitioners not 'problem-driven' (Pollock knows such disciplines grow and burgeon in an alethic and utilitarian manner free of faux navel-gazing and foolish stabs at gesture politics) but wholly absorbed in their own foundational problematic as an impossible discourse.
This brings me to the question, what is hermeneutics for? Books are meant to be loved and teased and mocked and quarreled with- that's philology. They aren't meant to be worshiped or taken as having any sort of authority or insight. Books are shite in the same way we are shite. Get shit-faced with a book. Don't fucking take no shit from it.
Okay, if you're making a living being a Rabbi or a Priest or whatever- sure, what you're doing is hermeneutics- but you're doing it the same way you do your Tax Return- viz. by working backwards from what you can afford to pay.
The other thing about philology is that it began to die when it entered the Academy- like Jazz when it decided it was too good for the dance hall.
Pollock bewails the demise of philology in India. But, that's good news. Why? Because he's talking about the fucking Universities. Does he not know the type of criminal that infests Indian Arts Depts? He goes boo hoo, the Bikaner Royal Family won't let me photograph their manuscripts. He doesn't say that if they let him do it- and, sure, he's a good guy and would actually do what he promised and not like wipe his arse on even a single leaf of Indic incunabula or use it to roll a joint- they'd then have to let in every fucking Gangster of a Professor who will simply steal everything in sight and rape the light fittings. After all, for the last thirty years, academic orthodoxy in India is that Brahmins are the source of all evil. Since some Brahmins were literate, all Indic texts are inherently evil. In any case, all that shit is probably pornographic so this is something both Saffron and Red can agree upon.
Hermeneutics is 'othering'. Philology could be 'brothering' but isn't coz Hermeneutics made it its bitch. . Neither have any relevance to Itihasa. That's stuff to do with loving not books but babies- a burgeoning popular vatsalya not Pollock's all-blighting vedanta.
P.S. funniest line ever- 'The Ramanand Sagar T.V series is the latest (Valmiki's being the first) attempt to establish a HEGEMONIC VERSION of the Ramayana.' Yup, you heard me right- that's Ramanand Sagar we're talking about. What was Pollock smoking? I want some.
The problem with Pollock is that he goes on repeating drivel from failed hermeneutic programs- utterly forgetting to seek for answers to the open problems he himself cites. If Philology is in trouble it's because of Pollock and his ilk. Problem driven readers, if enabled to access relevant texts and research for free- not Professors acting as shills for a corrupt, credentialist, pay-wall protected, Academic publishing racket- can revitalize Philology. Not Governments, not the always risible demand for more disciplinarity discourse, not the Academy- a nightclub where all the lap-dancers have retrained as bouncers- not fucking illiterate bloggers like me, not... hang on a sec. ...I didn't mean that...I know what I said but I expected you to kinda shake your head and say 'no, no dear fellow- not illiterate surely'... No, I'm not getting riled up.... I'm perfectly calm....well, up your hole with a ten foot pole! ... really? That's the best you can come up with? Up my hole with an eleven foot pole? Is that supposed to be witty? Look, just fucking grow up okay? I will write to your headmaster and tell him about those naked pics of your Mom you sent me.... okay, okay, so it was your Gran... listen, you little shit, you're pimping your own fucking Gran okay? That doesn't give you the moral high ground here... Well, yeah, sure I'd still like to meet her... Okay then. That's your Hindi assignment I've emailed you, so just give me her phone number and we're all square... Sheila Dixit is your Nanee? That was her in those photos?... Fuck yeah! I'm a Congress supporter- well I am now!...I'm not sure about the strap-on thing but, it's true, I do look a lot like Ram Vilas Paswan...Cool. Look forward to it... yeah, you too. Go have fun with your gulli danda. I certainly plan to with mine! Many thanks for the new pics.
Thursday, 7 April 2011
Christ's missing years- new evidence unearthed proving he was in India.
The mystery of Jesus's missing years can now be revealed. He was working as the Lokpal of India under the provisions of a Mauryan statute which was in substance identical with the Government's proposed Lokpal bill. That's why nobody heard of him and his stay in India had no impact.
A great hero of India and true son of the soil- Suresh Jain a Shiv Sena M.L.A- has fearlessly exposed Anna Hazare and his mischievous hunger strike.
This is from the Times of India-
During Zero Hour, Jain said Hazare was making unsubstantiated charges of graft against politicians. "Sweeping allegations do not add up to anything. I, too, can make allegations against Hazare," he added.
Jain came to the rescue of his former mentor and Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar who resigned on Wednesday from the Group of Ministers (GoM) following Hazare's allegations of corruption against the NCP chief. "I no longer have good equations with Sharad Pawar. But why should Pawar resign from the GoM on Hazare's allegation? I can level charges of corruption against Hazare and he should resign and hand over the Lok Pal Bill movement to citizens. They will run it," he said.
Since Jain is from the Hindu Shiv Sena, he has not mentioned the most important reason for opposing Hazare and approving the Govt's proposal re. the duties of the Lok Pal. Jesus Christ himself occupied that office. He could walk on water and turn water into wine. But even he couldn't make any dent in corruption because the Lok Pal's office simply does not permit any such thing.
I hope you will all join me in condemning Hazare- a C.I.A agent with over ten trillion dollars in his Swiss Bank account- and praising Suresh Jain.
Jai Hind!
A great hero of India and true son of the soil- Suresh Jain a Shiv Sena M.L.A- has fearlessly exposed Anna Hazare and his mischievous hunger strike.
This is from the Times of India-
During Zero Hour, Jain said Hazare was making unsubstantiated charges of graft against politicians. "Sweeping allegations do not add up to anything. I, too, can make allegations against Hazare," he added.
Jain came to the rescue of his former mentor and Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar who resigned on Wednesday from the Group of Ministers (GoM) following Hazare's allegations of corruption against the NCP chief. "I no longer have good equations with Sharad Pawar. But why should Pawar resign from the GoM on Hazare's allegation? I can level charges of corruption against Hazare and he should resign and hand over the Lok Pal Bill movement to citizens. They will run it," he said.
Since Jain is from the Hindu Shiv Sena, he has not mentioned the most important reason for opposing Hazare and approving the Govt's proposal re. the duties of the Lok Pal. Jesus Christ himself occupied that office. He could walk on water and turn water into wine. But even he couldn't make any dent in corruption because the Lok Pal's office simply does not permit any such thing.
I hope you will all join me in condemning Hazare- a C.I.A agent with over ten trillion dollars in his Swiss Bank account- and praising Suresh Jain.
Jai Hind!
Repressive Desublimation and Natural Disasters.
Thousands of years ago, during the Golden Sangam Age, the peaceful deliberations of a convocation of learned scholars was threatened by a turbulent flood, not or words, but water as the sacred Kaveri overboiled its banks. Acting with aplomb, the Scholars immediately conferred upon it a Phd, in honoris causa, upon which it sank back into that torpor which distinguishes those upon whom Higher Education has left its mark.
More recently, especially since the Sixties and Seventies of the last Century, the Academy has used a similar tactic in dealing with modes of thought and models of discourse considered subversive to existing structures of power. In line with Marcuse's notion of 'repressive desublimation' as underlying the so-called 'Permissive Society's' strategy of saving the Military-Industrial complex and the National Security State from the wrath of the women's movement which, Lysistrata like, was seducing young men from their duty as canon fodder, it is tempting to speak of a sort of Academic repressive desublimation- or let us say an arid Intellectualising away of the green sap of dissent- as characterising the mainsprings of Political theory in the last few decades.
It is now urgent the same approach be extended to tsunamis and other natural disasters.
I propose the creation of an Academic body, of the highest status and financial solvency, for the specific puprose of granting degrees not just to animals and plants but also such tectonic plates as may have grown restive by their lack of access to higher education.
All babies- as I believe is already best practice in Bihar- should receive PhD in Gramscian Grammatology by the age of one, unless they are naughty in which case an MPhil from Cambridge in Development Studies will suffice to teach them the error of their ways.
More recently, especially since the Sixties and Seventies of the last Century, the Academy has used a similar tactic in dealing with modes of thought and models of discourse considered subversive to existing structures of power. In line with Marcuse's notion of 'repressive desublimation' as underlying the so-called 'Permissive Society's' strategy of saving the Military-Industrial complex and the National Security State from the wrath of the women's movement which, Lysistrata like, was seducing young men from their duty as canon fodder, it is tempting to speak of a sort of Academic repressive desublimation- or let us say an arid Intellectualising away of the green sap of dissent- as characterising the mainsprings of Political theory in the last few decades.
It is now urgent the same approach be extended to tsunamis and other natural disasters.
I propose the creation of an Academic body, of the highest status and financial solvency, for the specific puprose of granting degrees not just to animals and plants but also such tectonic plates as may have grown restive by their lack of access to higher education.
All babies- as I believe is already best practice in Bihar- should receive PhD in Gramscian Grammatology by the age of one, unless they are naughty in which case an MPhil from Cambridge in Development Studies will suffice to teach them the error of their ways.
Sunday, 3 April 2011
'Teri Maa-behen nahin hai, kya?'- a vignette of the Emergency.
"Have you no Mother or Sister?"- when I was 14 and New Delhi still 7 years from coming of age - I had but to glance in the direction of any dupatta clad lady on the D.T.C bus for her to thus upbraid me for my delinquency with respect to, what our still rather rustic women clearly were convinced was, for artless adolescents such as I, an exigent duty of unstopping incest.
Greatly embarrassed to be, in such peremptory fashion, publicly taken to task, I'd hang my head and haltingly mumble the following feeble excuse in my 'Convent School' English- "Madam, such of my kin-folk as answer to your inquiry, are, currently, all copiously menstruating- and, before you ask, Daddy, too, has bleeding piles- so, to reduce dhobi bills for my school uniform- as previsioned by the Pay Commission's White Paper de-escalating Dearness Allowance increments- I have been granted this furlough to attend class.'- and, speaking generally, that would be enough to mollify the ladies or, at any rate, to baffle their rage and reduce them to dark mutterings in dehati dialects.
My friend, Rajiv, being a transfer student from some upcountry Kendriya Vidhyalay, took a more demotic tack. 'Maa bhi hai aur behen bhi' he'd say soulfully, before adding the Chinatown twist, 'aur donon mere hi ladli beti hain!'.
This riposte tended to bait the interest of middle-aged male passengers leading to some quite intellectually challenging exchanges.
'Your sister, we understand, but how can your mother be your own daughter?': "...'but even if your Grandmother really was the top Lady Sri Ram College tutor in tribadism, incestuously turned on by your mother's gravid state...'; '.... granted, a foetus can have an erection as per recent advances in ultra-sound technology, still...';. '...haan, haan, hamen bhi pata hai, youngsters, nowadays, are coming too quickly but surely sperm can't reach tachyonic speed and travel back in time?';...'.Khabardar! Leave Sanjay Gandhi out of this! You don't know who might be listening!'
The Emergency didn't last very long- just 21 months- but it gave my generation a taste of what life might be like under a Stalin or Hitler- or, to strike a sibylline note, a Mamta Bannerjee or Jayalalitha- those 'Didijis' or 'Ammas', of whose threat to our virginal ass-holes the cryptic and Cassandra-like cry of- 'Teri Maa-behen nahin hai kya?'- alerted us not at all.
Greatly embarrassed to be, in such peremptory fashion, publicly taken to task, I'd hang my head and haltingly mumble the following feeble excuse in my 'Convent School' English- "Madam, such of my kin-folk as answer to your inquiry, are, currently, all copiously menstruating- and, before you ask, Daddy, too, has bleeding piles- so, to reduce dhobi bills for my school uniform- as previsioned by the Pay Commission's White Paper de-escalating Dearness Allowance increments- I have been granted this furlough to attend class.'- and, speaking generally, that would be enough to mollify the ladies or, at any rate, to baffle their rage and reduce them to dark mutterings in dehati dialects.
My friend, Rajiv, being a transfer student from some upcountry Kendriya Vidhyalay, took a more demotic tack. 'Maa bhi hai aur behen bhi' he'd say soulfully, before adding the Chinatown twist, 'aur donon mere hi ladli beti hain!'.
This riposte tended to bait the interest of middle-aged male passengers leading to some quite intellectually challenging exchanges.
'Your sister, we understand, but how can your mother be your own daughter?': "...'but even if your Grandmother really was the top Lady Sri Ram College tutor in tribadism, incestuously turned on by your mother's gravid state...'; '.... granted, a foetus can have an erection as per recent advances in ultra-sound technology, still...';. '...haan, haan, hamen bhi pata hai, youngsters, nowadays, are coming too quickly but surely sperm can't reach tachyonic speed and travel back in time?';...'.Khabardar! Leave Sanjay Gandhi out of this! You don't know who might be listening!'
The Emergency didn't last very long- just 21 months- but it gave my generation a taste of what life might be like under a Stalin or Hitler- or, to strike a sibylline note, a Mamta Bannerjee or Jayalalitha- those 'Didijis' or 'Ammas', of whose threat to our virginal ass-holes the cryptic and Cassandra-like cry of- 'Teri Maa-behen nahin hai kya?'- alerted us not at all.
Friday, 1 April 2011
How gay was Gandhi?
Totally gay according to the Daily Mail. Not gay really but just an utter wierdo and all time pain-in-the-arse according to Andrew Roberts whose article in the Wall Street Journal sparked off the fuss leading to the banning of Joseph Lelyveld's actually rather sympathetic biography of Gandhi by good ole' Narendra Modi.
It is Roberts review- rather than Lelyveld's book (the author denies claiming Gandhi was a sodomite)- with which I take issue.
It contains pretty much all the silly things that can be said about Gandhi.
Here's a start- For all his lifelong campaign for Swaraj ("self-rule"), India could have achieved it many years earlier if Gandhi had not continually abandoned his civil-disobedience campaigns just as they were beginning to be successful.
Why is this nonsense?
Gandhi did not campaign lifelong for Independence. He was not a revolutionist. He had no truck with the 'garam dal'- Bal, Pal & Lal- and openly condemned Savarkar and Jugantar and so on. He was pretty loyal to the British Empire- as were the majority of Indians. There was not one single year when the Government had any difficulty recruiting as many civil servants as they needed. Only in 1917, 18 was there a problem or recruitment for the Army, but that was only because certain districts, and 'martial castes' within those districts, had already sent as many boys as they could manage. Roberts mentions Gandhi's role as a recruiting sergeant- not that he failed dismally. To remain politically significant he had to move to the ground those longer in the game had already marked out for him- viz. a position of metaphysical extremism which cashed out as an infantilizing and rendering innocuous of the passions of the rising generation- a safe option given that the Revolutionists had failed, the arms promised by the German Crown Prince were seized by the British, the powers of surveillance and coercion of the Raj had risen to meet and more than risen to meet the threat posed by the Nationalists. All the members of the 'garam dal' mellowed. The Revolutionists either died or turned Communist- M.K Roy became Stalin's envoy to the Kuomintang- or became Godmen or set up as apolitical sectarians.
True, the British could have been forced out of India at any time- it's just that they'd have taken their legacy with them. Gandhi talked shite but he deserved the money and adulation he received for giving the British a guilt complex about selling the whole thing up for scrap value.
Why does Roberts not congratulate Gandhi for prolonging British rule in India? Well, it's because of that 'progressive' stench that emanates from him- vegetarianism, pacificism, interminable pi-jab about the duties of wealth and so on. And being a great Gay boy, hot for a Jewish body-builder, is the sort of thing those Progressives go in for. Shame but there it is.
Rajmohan and Leela Gandhi, on the other hand, have no problem with the notion of a Gandhi with a functioning libido. Quite right too. If he really was gay or bisexual, then enormous prestige is lent to the fight against homophobia- definitely a good thing- though, of course, it's no good telling lies about something like this. Setting up a silly ashram or joining a shit-head cult is not the way to go if you're just coming out- saving up your pocket money for some real eye-catching tramp stamps and body piercing should be the priority.
I always had a soft soft for Stanley Wopert's picture of the young Nehru as a total dick magnet- it's kind of aristocratic, dontchasee?- and have repeated the marvellous insinuation (made by the daughter of a famous singer) that Firaq Gorakpuri was bumming Nehru till Gandhi stuck his oar in. His oar, not his dick. Let us be clear about that.
And, no, Rahul Baba- don't you be getting any ideas. Chee, chee- put it away- nasty boy.
It is Roberts review- rather than Lelyveld's book (the author denies claiming Gandhi was a sodomite)- with which I take issue.
It contains pretty much all the silly things that can be said about Gandhi.
Here's a start- For all his lifelong campaign for Swaraj ("self-rule"), India could have achieved it many years earlier if Gandhi had not continually abandoned his civil-disobedience campaigns just as they were beginning to be successful.
Why is this nonsense?
Gandhi did not campaign lifelong for Independence. He was not a revolutionist. He had no truck with the 'garam dal'- Bal, Pal & Lal- and openly condemned Savarkar and Jugantar and so on. He was pretty loyal to the British Empire- as were the majority of Indians. There was not one single year when the Government had any difficulty recruiting as many civil servants as they needed. Only in 1917, 18 was there a problem or recruitment for the Army, but that was only because certain districts, and 'martial castes' within those districts, had already sent as many boys as they could manage. Roberts mentions Gandhi's role as a recruiting sergeant- not that he failed dismally. To remain politically significant he had to move to the ground those longer in the game had already marked out for him- viz. a position of metaphysical extremism which cashed out as an infantilizing and rendering innocuous of the passions of the rising generation- a safe option given that the Revolutionists had failed, the arms promised by the German Crown Prince were seized by the British, the powers of surveillance and coercion of the Raj had risen to meet and more than risen to meet the threat posed by the Nationalists. All the members of the 'garam dal' mellowed. The Revolutionists either died or turned Communist- M.K Roy became Stalin's envoy to the Kuomintang- or became Godmen or set up as apolitical sectarians.
True, the British could have been forced out of India at any time- it's just that they'd have taken their legacy with them. Gandhi talked shite but he deserved the money and adulation he received for giving the British a guilt complex about selling the whole thing up for scrap value.
Why does Roberts not congratulate Gandhi for prolonging British rule in India? Well, it's because of that 'progressive' stench that emanates from him- vegetarianism, pacificism, interminable pi-jab about the duties of wealth and so on. And being a great Gay boy, hot for a Jewish body-builder, is the sort of thing those Progressives go in for. Shame but there it is.
Rajmohan and Leela Gandhi, on the other hand, have no problem with the notion of a Gandhi with a functioning libido. Quite right too. If he really was gay or bisexual, then enormous prestige is lent to the fight against homophobia- definitely a good thing- though, of course, it's no good telling lies about something like this. Setting up a silly ashram or joining a shit-head cult is not the way to go if you're just coming out- saving up your pocket money for some real eye-catching tramp stamps and body piercing should be the priority.
I always had a soft soft for Stanley Wopert's picture of the young Nehru as a total dick magnet- it's kind of aristocratic, dontchasee?- and have repeated the marvellous insinuation (made by the daughter of a famous singer) that Firaq Gorakpuri was bumming Nehru till Gandhi stuck his oar in. His oar, not his dick. Let us be clear about that.
And, no, Rahul Baba- don't you be getting any ideas. Chee, chee- put it away- nasty boy.
Thursday, 31 March 2011
Edmund Candler and the Indian Revolutionist
Edmund Candler went to India hoping to turn into a second Kipling. Sadly, India turned him into the author of 'Siri Ram- Revolutionist'.
Candler was a headmaster- like Fielding, in Foster's Passage to India- but Candler thought people like himself were in India not because they liked it but because they owned it, it was theirs, in the same way that a zamindar owned the land from which he collected taxes for the Government.
Candler opens our eyes to the horrors of the English system of education in India- as this passage illustrates-
' His students had unearthed a Hindu annotator who had analysed the ingredients of English humour, and who pointed out all the passages in the text-books which came or seemed to come under this head, so that they could tabulate them to a nicety.
Skene came upon the scent of the mischief when he was reading Adonais with them. He had set the clearest tongued to read the stanza beginning
when Banarsi Das rose darkling from his seat and said— "Sir, are not these lines humorous?"
"Good God," Skene began, but the youth caught him on the recoil.
"The humour lies in incongruity. Poet speaks of ' that unrest which men miscall dee-light.'
The joke here is, of course, that Banarsi Das is quite right. Translate rasabhasa as comic incongruity and we see the kid has hit the nail on the head. Shelley writing 'and that unrest which men miscall delight...'- Shelley... not fucking Southey... and that too in an elegy on Keats- Keats gerrit?...this is the shallow and seditious Platonist drowning in one whose name is writ in water- it's fucking priceless! But, precisely for that reason, so howlingly sad- proof positive that rasabhasa as hasya includes and is the apotheosis of every rasa- you gorra larf, intcha? Eh? Eh?
In any case, the whole point about Banarsi Das's cohort was that they took as Gospel the proposition that Unrest, Miss, is that which real Men call the Light.
Candler might have seen it for himself if he hadn't been a fucking school master- doomed by his attempt to imitate the inimitably amphibolous Kipling as Ind's Hayy ibn Yaqzan to becoming a 2 dimensional fossil of a fucking E.M. Forster character- and doing it in fucking Godhulia Gorrrrmint Coll. or wherever. (He'd run away from Bengal after getting a death threat around the time of the Alipore Bomb Case).
Why is Siri Ram- a dim fellow- attending this College? His dad is a Jat peasant with perhaps 300 Rupees p.a. If his son matriculates he immediately earns more. If he gets a B.A, much more. But, even if this weren't the case you have a full blown 'credential crisis' in the pipeline- itself fed by the relaxing of Malthusian checks on population. That's why these kids are being taught Shelley and Stevenson and other such shite rather than stuff about precautions to take against the plague or raising agricultural yields and so on.
The odd thing about Candler's book is that it seems rather to confirm than deny the notion that Bengali Swamis like Vivekananda and Mohini Chatterjee actually had supernatural powers. Strangely, Sri Aurobindo, not to mention his younger brother, on his ultimate release from jail, both abandoned conspiratorial power politics for an even more esoteric overreaching supernaturalism. Even Shubash Chandra Bose was believed to have become a Swami- of the 'Hidden Master' sort- in India after the War. This raises the question- was this trope really an Indian thing or some projection of a congenital weakness within the half-baked Evangelical./Utilitarian Anglo-Indian psyche which, by reason of Ind's emptiness as object of Girardian mimetic desire, incarnated its scapegoated alterity as immortal rival?
Candler rose to be Director of Publicity, Punjab, at the time of Jallianwallah. He retired to England a couple of years later. Literature, it seems, is its own reward.
Candler was a headmaster- like Fielding, in Foster's Passage to India- but Candler thought people like himself were in India not because they liked it but because they owned it, it was theirs, in the same way that a zamindar owned the land from which he collected taxes for the Government.
Candler opens our eyes to the horrors of the English system of education in India- as this passage illustrates-
' His students had unearthed a Hindu annotator who had analysed the ingredients of English humour, and who pointed out all the passages in the text-books which came or seemed to come under this head, so that they could tabulate them to a nicety.
Skene came upon the scent of the mischief when he was reading Adonais with them. He had set the clearest tongued to read the stanza beginning
" He hath outsoared the shadow of our night.
Envy and calumny and hate and pain,
And that unrest which men miscall delight
Can touch him not and torture not again."
when Banarsi Das rose darkling from his seat and said— "Sir, are not these lines humorous?"
"Good God," Skene began, but the youth caught him on the recoil.
"The humour lies in incongruity. Poet speaks of ' that unrest which men miscall dee-light.'
The joke here is, of course, that Banarsi Das is quite right. Translate rasabhasa as comic incongruity and we see the kid has hit the nail on the head. Shelley writing 'and that unrest which men miscall delight...'- Shelley... not fucking Southey... and that too in an elegy on Keats- Keats gerrit?...this is the shallow and seditious Platonist drowning in one whose name is writ in water- it's fucking priceless! But, precisely for that reason, so howlingly sad- proof positive that rasabhasa as hasya includes and is the apotheosis of every rasa- you gorra larf, intcha? Eh? Eh?
In any case, the whole point about Banarsi Das's cohort was that they took as Gospel the proposition that Unrest, Miss, is that which real Men call the Light.
Candler might have seen it for himself if he hadn't been a fucking school master- doomed by his attempt to imitate the inimitably amphibolous Kipling as Ind's Hayy ibn Yaqzan to becoming a 2 dimensional fossil of a fucking E.M. Forster character- and doing it in fucking Godhulia Gorrrrmint Coll. or wherever. (He'd run away from Bengal after getting a death threat around the time of the Alipore Bomb Case).
Why is Siri Ram- a dim fellow- attending this College? His dad is a Jat peasant with perhaps 300 Rupees p.a. If his son matriculates he immediately earns more. If he gets a B.A, much more. But, even if this weren't the case you have a full blown 'credential crisis' in the pipeline- itself fed by the relaxing of Malthusian checks on population. That's why these kids are being taught Shelley and Stevenson and other such shite rather than stuff about precautions to take against the plague or raising agricultural yields and so on.
The odd thing about Candler's book is that it seems rather to confirm than deny the notion that Bengali Swamis like Vivekananda and Mohini Chatterjee actually had supernatural powers. Strangely, Sri Aurobindo, not to mention his younger brother, on his ultimate release from jail, both abandoned conspiratorial power politics for an even more esoteric overreaching supernaturalism. Even Shubash Chandra Bose was believed to have become a Swami- of the 'Hidden Master' sort- in India after the War. This raises the question- was this trope really an Indian thing or some projection of a congenital weakness within the half-baked Evangelical./Utilitarian Anglo-Indian psyche which, by reason of Ind's emptiness as object of Girardian mimetic desire, incarnated its scapegoated alterity as immortal rival?
Candler rose to be Director of Publicity, Punjab, at the time of Jallianwallah. He retired to England a couple of years later. Literature, it seems, is its own reward.
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